On Physical Defense

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Hey, don’t assume this stuff is written in concrete because this is simply me trying to gain perspective and understanding to the Boyd OODA loop, patterns of conflict, and his Discourse on Winning and Losing; so all of the following is my learning curve. Take it for what it is, an attempt at understanding through analysis and synthesis.

Compare maneuver warfare to the traditional attrition warfare? 

The question that comes to my mind, like sports, many who teach and use karate and martial arts skills, supposedly, tend to do so as if in a sport contest. The question that comes to my mind, sports are geared toward an attrition like type of competition where two face off and use strength and power to wear out their opponent until they give up. The question that comes to my mind, if this is so then maneuver tactics seem superior to the attrition or smarter, because it is more about the mind aling with speed and maneuver, say going off centerline, etc., to achieve a goal of stopping an attack. Simplistic, I know, but in a sense and fundamentally this theory may be valid. 

In a self-defense situation it has been said and I have noted that there are patterns presented along a path that can take you to physical violence and also to bypass that violence is you learn those patterns, recognize them along the way then consciously make a decisions to take a different path like toward avoidance or escape-evasion or deescalation (the order only matters as to how you feel best toward appropriate actions from your observations/orientations, etc.

In a nutshell, my theory, the differences between attrition type defense and maneuver defense is, “attrition is about training toward a strength oriented approach of a face-to-face effort of fighting, illegal that is, toward reducing and depleting the strength and effectiveness of your attacker through a sustained pressure attack. In other words, fight like fighters till the other guy quits or drops from exhaustion or some other accidental injury, etc.

In a nutshell, my theory, maneuver is more about utilizing your mind to apply skills that take into consideration all forms of self-defense much like the patters or paths that lead up to physical violence, i.e., in other words knowing, understanding and recognition of the physical violence road the choosing to take a different path toward say, “Avoidance and/or Deescalation” or “Escape and Evasion,” and so on. Recognizing those patterns or roads to violence means you can make a choice that can defeat your adversary with out ever going to war or fighting or using physical force within the self-defense square and so on - make sense?

This is much like Boyd’s “A Discourse (that include patterns of conflict or expands on it)” where he advocates using strength against weakness (manueiver) rather than strength agains strength (attrition). 

A driving principle of a discourse by Colonel Boyd is a driving principle of a concept of surfaces and gaps; one wants to create gaps to flow through and thus flow around surfaces (maneuver) rather than crash against them (attrition).

It comes down to creating, training and understanding instinctively your strategies, goals and tactics but when it comes to applying them you remain  true to your intent but also allow the freedom of judgement to determine exactly how your goals and strategies should be accomplished. In other words you use the concepts of cheng and ch’i with speed, fluidity, and change through use of multiple methodologies - that would include within a maneuver mind-set to change the course or patterns so that physical violence is avoided for more appropriate end goals to stop an attack. It allows you to be self-empowered to both recognize and take advantage of opportunities, as well as gifts from your adversary, that you may encounter in conflict. 

In other words, like Boyd’s art of war, harmonize your actions and initiative of situational requirements with your goals, strategies and tactics. It is to remain true to your intent but to allow change and creativity to stop an attack. It is real-time change to transform responses to transformations in actions that create operational fluidity not tied to simple attrition but to the more acceptable maneuver defenses. 

Add in a combination of choices provided by a maneuver, non-attrition, type of tactics through a solid tool set of principled based multiple methodology in combination with movement and speed and fluidity and tempo with rhythm, so that when an adversary takes up a defense against one, they become vulnerable to another offense from you. It them becomes an operational OODA loop cycle that adjusts to the rhythm and tempo you set in this mannger or set of tactics, etc. It is a application of variety (principled multiple defense methodologies), rapidity (speed, fluidity of changes, etc.), harmony (the cohesivness of applied methodologies, strategies, goals and tactic toward adversary confusion, etc.), and initiative (the ability to change situational applications of tactics and strategies without losing the intent of tactis and strategies in real-time).

Think of attrition and maneuver for self-defense in this way, i.e., “Karate is an attrition system relying in strength and the power of that strength while Aikido is a maneuver system that relies on the adversary’s use of force, power and strength.” Does that make sense, both have their strengths and weaknesses just like applying self-defense of you and an adversary (assuming it is just you two and his friends are not there to pitch in). You can either apply your karate directly and forcefully to wear down the strength and stamina of your adversary or you can apply your aikido to use his against him or even better you can use your maneuver skills to avoid the violence or deescalate the situation and thereby avoid the violence or escape-evade the adversary as they approach to apply their conflict and possibly violence skills against you - Yeah, that sounds even better. 

Oh, lets not forget that for maneuver self-defense you can actually stop conflict and violence of a more serious nature by taking stock of yourself, your contributions in a conflict that can and do escalate things to physical violence and stop that mind-state when you encounter that first on-ramp down a path to conflict and possibly physical violence - yeah, that sounds even better and that fits a mold of maneuver that I might symbolize by calling that, “Patterns of Self-Defense.” (working things out, in other words still analyzing toward a synthesis of something a bit different)

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